The Sixth Time
by merlintriss
Summary: AU, New Moon. Alice doesn't see Bella jump off the cliff, the Cullens don't return to Forks. Bella is left alone to live a life without Edward. Even though Edward is never far away. Two-Shot.
1. Chapter 1

AU-New Moon. Bella never jumped. Or, if she did, she jumped with Jacob. She suffered through the year, but survived, Edward didn't come back, didn't try to kill himself using the Volturi, and he and his family moved on.

The second time I saw Edward, I thought he was a hallucination.

After the forest, I was sure I would never see him again. Some part of me had accepted it, the rest had decided that I should spend a good portion of high school as an emotionless zombie, prone to crying at the mere mention of love.

Jacob was good to me, as good as he could be, and I appreciated that gesture. He was sweet, but in all honesty, he was more like a brother to me. I wish I could have loved him the way he wanted me to. It would have made things easier if I did, if life had gone as planned, if everyone had been human. But it wasn't.

I finished high school, Charlie trying his best to send me to live with Renee, hoping that a change in scenery would stunt the pain. I couldn't. I wanted to say that this was because I didnt' want his leaving to change me, but in reality, I was just hoping he would come back, and that I would then be easy to find.

I hadn't expected to see him again.

College had never really been a dream of mine, but with my grades and general boredom, I was able to get into a smaller college in upstate New York. Across the country from where I would ever expect to see Edward. As far as I knew, his family frequented Washington and Alaska, but kept a low profile elsewhere.

Classes were boring and rote, I made a few friends with a casual crowd, much like my friends in Forks. I took the regular classes during the day, went home to a small apartment after working a shift at the fast food resturaunt in between my home and campus. It was when I decided to sign up for a night math class (the basketball players that I tutored for cash in English lit said they were the easiest) that things changed.

I gave my class a cursory glance, the same look I gave every class, looking for familiar faces when my eyes slid across one face in particular. Framed in signature bronze locks.

It couldn't be.

Except that his skin was pale, and he was perfect, and his body didn't seem a single detail different from when I saw him four years previously. Of course not. He would have to remain perfect as I aged, as curves formed on a once bean pole body. He would have to remain exactly the same while I stepped one day closer to death.

He saw me, our eyes connected, brown to topaz, and I suddenly felt the exact opposite of the emotion I used to feel around Edward. I wanted to run. I was scared of the confrontation, the emotions it would bring up, the fact that despite my best efforts, I was far from being over Edward Cullen.

I did just that. With a cursory excuse to the teacher, I bolted from the almost full class room, rushed home in the dark, mindless of the danger a girl alone could get into. I didnt' care. I needed to be as far away from him as possible. If he had wanted to catch me, he could've. Edward was the fastest. He didn't.

I spent the night on my bathroom floor, having thrown up everything I had eaten that day. God, I wasn't over Edward Cullen.

The third time I saw Edward Cullen, I thought it was a dream.

Becoming a high school counselor, especially after my own..unique experience in school, seemed a natural fit. Charlie was happy. It meant I could help out children, that I was in public service. Like my father. He appreciated that.

It was the first day of the semester, my second year on the job. I had gotten comfortable, gone out for a few drinks (more casual than romantic) with the 8th grade history teacher down the hall, and though the small high school on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon reminded me greatly of Forks, it was close enough that I could make a short trip to see Charlie and Renee, who had settled in Northern California now that Phil was retired. They both liked the country, and once I had sat out in the sun on their farm, I had to agree, it was a beautiful place to live.

The west coast apparently called for me.

I had just finished up with a phone call with Jacob, something that always made me smile. He and Leah had just broken up, trying to give their love/hate relationship a try, but the way he told it, it sounded more entertaining than heartbreaking. I was glad he was settling so comfortably, a slow-aging teddy bear for me to call and unload on whenever I felt bad. I would feel guilty, except he did the same thing.

The last thing I expected to see was Carlisle Cullen, young blonde and smiling at my office door, papers in hand, his "children" spread out behind him. Though I read the blatant shock on Edwards face, the others were harder to decifer. Jasper, as always, seemed kind of pained, Rosalie annoyed, but I could almost swear that Emmett and Alice looked..._satisfied?_

This time, it was Edward that fled, hand pushing through his remarkable hair as he stalked off down the hallway. Jasper followed in quick pursuit, and Carlisle motioned for the rest of his perfect clan to take Edwards example.

"Why Bella, when I saw the name Ms. Swan on the registration forms, I had a feeling it might be you," Carlisle smiled that enigmatic smile he had so long perfected.

"Yes, well, I typically keep a look out for so many children being enrolled into my school at once, but this one seemed to just slip under my radar," my smile, I was sure, was grotesque. I was, in this case, the crying clown.

"Quick admission, courtesy of the mayor. He was terribly excited to get such a top level doctor in town, he fast tracked the _children_ through as quickly as possible. Favor for the new family of course," again, the smile, perfect white teeth, not a single one out of order.

"Of course," I almost gritted my teeth. Fate was bitch slapping me, forcing me into a world I didn't want to be in, forcing me to run into Edward whenever I thought I was alright. Fortunately enough, it was he this time that ran.

"Well, I suppose we'll head out now. We wouldn't want to upset your life anymore than we already have."

"I'm sure Rosalie will be upset."

"She'll adjust. Lord knows how many times we've had to move because of Emmett. The least she can do is move another time for Edward."

"Yes, well we know how much Edward wants to leave. How quickly he wants to get away from _me_." The venom in my voice was hard to hide, but all Carlisle did was raise one perfectly scuplted eyebrow.

"Yes, yes of course. It was very nice seeing you." He started out the door, before my words stopped him, turning around once more to see his sickeningly familiar topaz eyes.

"Just for curiousity's sake, what will be your excuse when you move this time?"

"Death in the family. Esme's mother just died in Alabama, and she's not holding together well. We all want to be together during this difficult time," he said the whole thing without affect, his face smooth as polished marvel before he turned on his heels and he soundlessly walked away. With as much poise as one could manage, I slid under her desk, clutching her knees to her chest and hoping to will away the rest of the day.

I was still not over Edward Cullen.

The fourth time I saw Edward Cullen, I was completely shocked.

I had never felt a strong urge to help people before. It sounds cruel, but its true. I was no Mother Teresa in hiding. But after five years of working as a middle/high school guidance counselor, I was ready to try something new. I was hoping that I would never see Edward again, so moving back across the country to live with my ailing father, or my mother who was now alone after Phil had died of cancer last August, was out of the question. They lived in spots where the Cullens might frequent.

No, at thirty, I was ready for an adventure.

The Peace Corps seemed like a good decision for me. With my history as a guidance counselor and my college level grasping at the Spanish language, I fit the bill for what they were looking for, teaching at a small school on the Amazon in Brazil. Perfect. Jacob called it a mid life crisis, but the boy was stuck in his early twenties. He didnt' know what was coming for him when he finally settled down and stopped phasing.

Years up north had prepared me for a break back to the warmth that I remembered from a youth in Phoenix. I missed the sun.

The first day I came back and I was sunburnt, I renegged on that idea. I hated the sun.

But the kids, the kids I loved. They would come in every day bright and early, bright white smiles that reminded me of someone else that I was now activiely choosing to forget. Dylan, my fellow teacher who spoke the local dialect, was quick to introduce me to my newest class. He was cute, in a hippie dippie-save-the-world kind of way, so I let him flirt. It wasn't worth mentioning that I was too damaged to be worth the trouble.

The other thing I hadn't been expecting was the had to naturally come in rainy season, when it got as much as nine feet of rain. 120 days of it. We had to cancel classes because of the mud, because of the river enroaching on our classroom.

My sunburn had faded, and I had talked Dylan out of taking me to see the river with our local guide. All I wanted to do was lay out and just not think, become a zombie like I had so effectively done in high school. It was interesting, one year of my youth had effectively changed the rest of my life. Everything was colored into before Edward and after Edward. BE and AE. I hated that. The Peace Corps was definitely something BE Bella would have never attempted. But AE Bella had nothing to lose, already knew that she wouldnt' get the love of her life, that he had run away with her heart before she really understood what it was she had.

So it was an understatement to say that on one of the rainiest days, when I was out on the back porch smoking, that seeing Edward was a shock.

I was in Brazil for crying out loud. One of the sunniest places on the planet. I was in a rainforest for Gods sake. Would I have to run to the Sahara to be free of him, to be free of the hurt he had caused? Why was fate conspiring against a woman who still pined for the love of her youth?

This time, neither one of us ran. I was just under the eave of the building the Peace Corps had us living in, the humidity fresh in the air, rain falling on the deck. He was emerging from the forest like Adam from Eden. Still perfect. Still flawless. I almost hated it for it, until my breath caught in my throat and I realized I was still hopelessly in love. Dammit.

He approached, water droplets running through hair that was now so dark as to be called black, across granite skin and through a thin gray t-shirt that, as my luck would have it, left nothing to the imagination. Edward was an Adonis, perfectly chiseled to be my bane, the one thing I would never truly have.

"Bella," the word was velvet on his tongue, and I let the cigarette fall to the deck, sizzling on the puddle it fell into.

"Edward."

"We keep running into each other," he was on the deck now, dangerously close. I wanted, no needed, to fight him. My instincts pulled me closer. His statement was rhetorical, I leaned against the paneling of the buidling, trying to fight what I knew I wanted to have. _Him._ He was so close.

"What are you doing here Edward?"_ Breaking my heart. Again._ It felt like the poor, abused organ was being assaulted, broken into a million pieces, spread like ashes on the water.

"Hunting." Of course. The flesh and blood reminder of what Edward truly was. Of what he was capable of. I imagined him in the wilderness with Jasper and Emmett, wild and carefree, taking down a panther with strong jaws and lithe muscle. The poor things were no match for hm. I was no match for him.

I was caught up in rememberances, in barely touched memories of our brief time together when I felt his hand, cold and wet, brush across my cheek. Before I knew what I was doing, I had slapped it away.

"You don't get to come back. You don't get to say what you want to say, and then expect me to just...cave, like I haven't been through enough. I'm a woman now Edward, not some silly girl to be strung along through your twisted little vampire romance," with more strength then I knew I possessed, I pushed my way from him, rushing back into the house, closing the door behind me, knowing that if he wished, he could break through to me.

He didn't. My heart broke anew.

I was still not over Edward Cullen.

The fifth time I saw Edward Cullen, I had settled down. I was forty-five, and though a day did not pass when I did not think of him, I knew I was going to be alright. I was married to Dylan, and was now no longer Bella Swan, but Isabella Walsh. He was pleased. I was content. Jacob thought it was amazing, and every now and then visited us in Chicago where we had settled, though it was difficult to explain to Dylan how I knew a 24 year old muscular Indian. I'm sure he thought I was having an affair.

Chicago was the land that Dylan had come from, where he had been before he met me. He was affable and charming, he loved me unconditionally, he was everything Edward was not. Warm. Soft. Alive. Available. I was content with him.

Dylan worked with an eco-company, trying to save the world through plastic bottles and love. I counselled at a local homeless shelter, talking to rape victims and heroin addicts like I understood their pain. I knew addiction. I knew abandonment. I understood withdrawal. But up until I met them, I thought my pain had been absolute. I had no idea what they were going through. I was just a silly girl with a broken heart. They were the ones who needed my support.

I hadn't been expecting the call.

Charlie Swan dead. If it had been any other town but Forks, a man his age wouldn't have been still working for the police force. But they were the type of guys who rarely carried guns around on the job, who spent afternoons at the diner instead of patrolling.

I supposed, on some level, it was better that he had gone out doing what he loved, his job. Some punks tried to rob a gas station. Her father had come in. The shots had been fired before anyone knew what to do. All they knew was that Charlie Swan had protected the young cashier, a junior at Forks high school with her whole life ahead of her. He would probably think it a worthwhile exchange.

I felt broken. More so than when Edward left me. More so than when I had had my fifth miscarriage and the doctor said a woman of my age would just have to be content adopting. I felt lost.

Dylan flew in with me to Port Angeles, and we took the drive to Forks in peace. He knew I needed time to think about nothing but my father, to be absorbed in that loss before we went back to our mundane but comfortable lives. Before I got the call, I was excited. I was about to tell Charlie that he was going to be a grandfather. The adoption forms had come through. I was going to be the proud mother of a baby girl from Boston. Dylan didn't even protest when I told him I was going to name her Esme Alice.

Everyone in town came, Billy Black, the young girl from the high school (her name was Hannah,) the kind waitress from the diner, stooped from old age and waiting tables, and, in the back..the Cullens. They were inconspicious, as inconspiciuos as the Cullens could be, but I could almost feel the hackles rising on the boys from the La Push reservation at their presence. I warned Jake when I saw them, nothing was going to happen at my fathers funeral. It was too disrespectful. Jacob agreed, growling as he did so, before settling in with the boys from the reservation, looking more like pit bulls than men.

I was in the bathroom, a small one stall affair, when I was suddenly not alone.

"What are you doing here Edward?"

"Carlisle always considered Charlie a friend..." he began, cutting off abruptly.

"I know that. But. What. Are. _You_. Doing. Here." I wiped snot from my nose, amused at how human I looked here before him, how old I was, how he was still perfect, unmoved by time, "Today of all days."

"I'm sorry Bella, I truly am," outside of Forks, no one called me Bella. That was the name of a child. I was Isabella Walsh now. I was going to be a mother soon. I stiffened.

"I don't need this right now Edward. I'm going back to Dylan now," I made for the door, but a gentle hand stopped me, his back pressed against the cheap tile of the bathroom.

"Dylan?"

"Dylan Walsh. My husband. We've been married eight years now," I wasn't expecting his violent reaction, the rage that built up suddenly as he pressed his hand like butter into the abused door, the way he completely destroyed it with barely a touch. Then he calmed, looking sad and pulling his hand from the new divots, a perfect hand shape on the metal, reminiscient of the first time I truly knew Edward was different.

"I'm sorry. I just wasn't expecting that," this made me angrier. Did he expect me to pine like a love scorned school girl? To wear white and sit in the woods, waiting for the day he came back to me, my prince charming?

"Grow up Edward. I'm going to be a mother soon. I have everything a girl like me needs. Leave me alone," I exited the bathroom quickly, dashing tears from my eyes, almost running into Jasper who I knew was radiating an unnatural aura of calm. For once, I was glad. Right now, I didn't want to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I wanted to feel composed, even if all I felt like doing was falling apart.

I was still not over Edward Cullen.

The sixth time I saw Edward Cullen, I was dying.

Alice Esme was an exceptional daughter, though anyone who saw us together knew that she could never have been born to me. She was full of natural grace and vigor, completely alive with all of the things I would never be. She had fallen in and out of love in twenty years, but I knew when she brought Greg home that he was hers. He was practically wrapped around her little finger. He probably was.

My mother was gone two years after my father due to a heart attack. Dylan died in his sleep when I was 58, and I awoke to a chill body that instantly felt wrong. I cried so much at the funeral that I wasn't sure if the Cullens had shown, though the next morning there was a beautiful arrangement of flowers delivered to my door without a card or note. I let them slowly die on my kitchen table.

Alice showed up when I was 65, the night before I found out that Alice Esme was engaged. I needed her support more than I let her know. Despite Edwards apparent ban, Alice had kept in touch, the occasional post card, a dress for an event I didnt' even know I was going to attend. She had smiled that broad, all encompassing smile when she found out that I had named my daughter after her. She promised she would return when I needed her. I never had any room to doubt Alice.

Jacob had finally stopped phasing, the last of his pack to do so, and was now an incredibly distinguished stoic man, though he barely looked into his forties. He and Leah were back together, though theres was a tumultuous relationship at best, I was pretty sure he loved her. He might as well have remained a wolf for the litter of children they had in their lives. I was happy for the both of them, and whenever I could I went to visit them, the aging Isabella Walsh in a walker on a reservation in Washington. I was sure I looked out of place.

It was in February of the year I turned 72 that I knew something momentous was going to happen. Alice came, and this time she came to stay, though she tried not to let on why. Jasper came with her, a ghostly presence on the corner of my mind, always keeping a level head, always menacing the neighborhood cats with the sheer power he gave off. Ten days later, I found out I had pancreatic cancer.

I knew why Alice had come.

She smiled when I asked, a slow nod of her shortly coifed black head, her hand squeezing her husbands in support.

"I'm dying."

Mortality, the demon I had confronted so often when I was younger, the one thing that haunted me and the relationship I could never truly have, was finally coming for me. Death was on the horizon. I almost laughed, a sound that would have been haulting from my dry throat.

Alice Esme finally got to meet her name sake when she came to hear the news, holding her tiny daughter, a girl she had named Bella Jane. I hoped my own name sake would have a better stock in life than I did. All I had to show for 72 years of life was a daughter and a legacy of never quite living up to my own standards. I was angry with myself.

And then he came. He was so young. I didn't bother to explain to my daughter how I knew all of these enigmatic people who hovered over my death bed like the Grim Reaper, in the periphery, in the wings waiting.

He took my hand, and I noticed that it wasn't as cold as I remembered.

"Edward," my own voice cracked as I looked at him, unblemished, perfect, the only sign of his age his eyes that now held the breadth of his own soul, the anguish he was going through as I lay dying. The pain, the pain I had been so warned about, was minimal. Jaspers power, a soothing calm, a detached apathy to the physical form, it was his final gift. I had never given him enough credit, always somehow blamed him for the seperation Edward had forced between us, but now I loved him like a brother. He had always been good to me.

"I lied," his voice broke my heart anew.

"What?"

"I lied. I always loved you. You were more than a distraction. I should've never...." he broke, his fingers gently circling around the protruding bone at the base of my thumb. "I was doing it for you. I did it all for you. Everything. I just wanted you to be....happy."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because, I needed you to know, because I've screwed this up so much, because, because even now, watchng you leave me forever, I'm still more in love with you than I can put into words. If I could tear out my own still beating heart and give it to you so that you may live, I would."

"I don't want it, Edward. I don't want it anymore," I tossed my head, trying to clear the murkiness. It felt like I was drowning in myself, "I lived my life, Edward."

I lied to him. I told him everything I wanted for him to hear. I had done everything I had wanted to do. I had gone on grand adventures, I had helped the poor, I had been a mother. I didn't tell him I would've given almost all of it up so that I could be with him, so that I could have one more day waking up and going to sleep with him wrapped around me. I would've given up everything but Alice Esme. For her I would've braved losing Edward all over again, if just to raise her. She was my everything.

I loved Edward, I would always love Edward, but in the end...it wasn't meant to be.

"Bella?" He watched me closely, probably hearing as my heart beat slower, probably seeing that my breaths were slowing down.

"Edward," my voice was so low I could barely hear it, but I was sure he could, "Edward, I forgive you."

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	2. Chapter 2

Because of a great deal of insistence, and the fact that people seemed to have a generally good reaction (other than the crying, which as a strong emotion I would suppose would be a good reaction) to the first chapter, I'm going to have to attempt this again. I don't think this one is as good as the first. Edwards point of view now, because I can't see where else this story would go. I have not read Midnight Sun, so I might not be getting close to his point of view.

The second time I saw Bella, I thought it was a mistake.

She's so average in some ways, basic hair color, basic height. But that scent. That intoxicating ambrosia of a scent. I couldnt' help but notice her when she stepped into the building, let alone the room. All around me were the scents of a late night classroom. The boys in the back smoking weed, the old man who smelled like burnt rubber and coffee, the young woman in the front who wasn't wearing underwear. They were all building on top of each other, scent after scent, until I was almost numb to any new fragrance. Until she stepped inside.

I had to tell her I didn't love her. It was the only way. I thought she'd see past it, that she would insist I was wrong. But leave it to Bella to doubt my love. Leave it to Bella to have such low self esteem that she could not read a blatant lie. I wanted to blame her, I really did, but there are things in this life that you must take your own accountability for. I was trying to save her life, and if not that, then at least her soul. She was in too deep with my family, she was coming closer and closer to the life I was going to lead. I couldn't have her there.

I remembered the forest perfectly, the scent of salt in the air, her broken eyes, my lies. Everthing I said I instantly wanted to retract, but I had to keep her safe. I loved her too much for this.

The plan was simple. I was going to wait until she died. I was going to number my days with hers. I may not let her be part of my fate, but I would share hers. When she died, I would let the Volturi tear me apart for breaking their rules. I didn't care.

I hoped, when I smelled her entering the building that she was going to go to another classroom. Any classroom. The old woman down the hall, the drunk upstairs teaching about particle physics, the young kid barely out of grad school teaching a bunch of jocks about the Renaissance. Any of those classes. Not this math. Not this one.

But I saw her.

In an instant, in a second, I knew she was going to run. My genetics, they sensed her fleeing. They wanted to follow, to take up the hunt after the intoxicating scent that ravaged them once more. She was beautiful, she was perfect, and I was denying myself to say that I didn't immediately recognize her.

She made some excuse I didn't hear to the teacher, who nodded like it made sense, and then bolted like I was after her. I wouldn't. I couldn't. She deserved better than an undead teenage boy. She needed someone she could grow old with, someone who could give her children, someone that could make love to her without rendering her apart. I wanted her so much I was willing to let her go, to let her run.

I took me two seconds to realize that Alice had to have known this would happen.

'

How could she willingly endanger Bella like that?

I fumed for the rest of the class, a luckily brief lesson. The teacher was thinking about internet porn the whole time, a disgusting diversion that managed to interest me in between thinking of ways to punish Alice.

I got home, and the family was already packed, and Jasper had Alice protectively behind him.

"You knew," I shouted, and felt the edges of an unreal calm build on the edge of my mind. It wasn't strong enough to sedate me. I was too furious, "I could've hurt her."

"I would've seen that, Edward. Don't think I would let you kill my best friend just because you're too stubborn to just change her."

"I'm never going to change her Alice. Never."

"You don't know that."

"Edward back off," the voice was strong, sure, and came from Jasper. Though he spent the most of his time in these arguments keeping silent, assured that their leaving Bella was because of him, this time he defended his mate.

"You told me not to look for her anymore Edward. You told me to not watch her future. Thats what I'm doing. You can't get mad at me because you accidentally crossed paths," she was thinking about the National Anthem in Japanese. Backwards. She was hiding something.

"We have to leave. Now. Where's Carlisle?" I ran to the study to find that Carlisle and Esme were finishing packing.

"We know, leaving now. One of these days you might try to just talk to Bella."

"No," I felt like I exploded, and ran into the woods. I couldn't be near Bella. I couldn't be trusted with her life. I wasn't worthy of her. I wasn't going to do it.

The third time I saw Bella, I was sure Alice had something to do with it.

I had convinced my family to stay as far away from Forks as possible. And upstate New York. I knew that staying north was a requirement for my family, but if I thought for a second that luck would be against us and Bella would continue life in the north, I would've moved myself to the Isle Esme for the next forty years.

Alice was the one who convinced him to stay with the family. After so many years of searching so desperately for the Cullens, she wasn't willing to part with him. Not yet.

They had spent a year with Tanya's coven in Denali, and even though Tanya typically tried to show her affection for him, this time Carlisle had taken her aside beforehand, told her about his son's heartbreak and that now was not the time to try and present herself as a possible mate.

"Give him a couple of decades, Tanya. You've got forever," Carlisles voice was soft, an obvious attempt not to be heard, but I had been on the look out for him to try and get me to create more than a friendship with Tanya. I could've wept with joy at his conversation with the vampiress if I didn't feel close to breaking. I had forever. I had forever alone.

The year passed quickly, and I found myself mostly sequestered in my room, a piano my only companion. I wouldn't dare to play her lullaby. I couldn't. I played everything other than that, tried my hardest not to play a tune that remotly resemebled her lullaby. For a year, I tried to not think, but that was impossible.

We moved around a little, but Jasper nearly lost his mind on a hiker in the woods in Wyoming, so we had to move again. This time to a suburb outside of Portland. We had moved in quickly into a house on the outskirts of town. This time Jasper wasn't going to school. He felt too hurt by what he could've done to even attempt to go to school in a new place. Alice hadn't tried to talk him out of it, just asked that when they checked in, he come with her to calm down the lot of them. New students usually brought a lot of tension, and the heightened tension was usually a trigger for at least one of them to nearly lose it. Interest was just too tantalizing a scent to ignore. Jasper agreed, for Alice. He would do anything for Alice. It made my still heart break. That kind of devotion.

The school was small, perfect for our purposes. We needed small schools so that not as many questions were asked. The smaller the school, the less you're expected to fragment, to join different cliques and groups. Here, we could just be friends with each other. We were stronger together than apart.

With an aching heart, I recognized that this school was very much like Forks. Small. Almost rural but still suburban. A small selection of ethnic groups. Wide eyed students watching as a group of vampires walked among them, preparing to become part of their number.

I should've noticed her scent, so intoxicating, even if it was matured, much like her. But I was too distracted, too enraptured by the scents of so many others that I didn't know, still trying to resist biting _just one._

We made it to the counselors office before I froze.

There she was. Still beautiful, if a little curvier than the last time I saw her. It suited hers in ways I was sure she didn't appreciate. Her eyes glanced over Carlisle, before freezing on mine in a look I was quick to recognize as terror. Finally she understood the danger.

Before she could run, I bolted out of the office. We couldn't stay here. I couldn't do this to her. Jasper followed and I accepted the calm he offered, even as it hit me like a bullet, even if it was so sudden it nearly knocked the breath out of me, except I didn't have breath.

He hovered just in the edge of my periphreal vision, like a subtle thought. I felt the rage build up outsid e of the unnatural calm. _Alice. _Jasper, sensing my mood shift, or perhaps I was so far gone that I didn't notice I had spoken aloud, moved into my line of sight, his whole body tense.

_She was looking out for you Edward. She wants you to be happy._ I raged uncontrollably.

"I'm doing this for Bella. She needs to be safe," we were outside now, and I took off at breakneck speeds through the woods. Jasper was behind me, but I was faster. I stopped in a clearing and Jasper came to a stop in front of me.

_You're killing yourself like this. You're killing your family like this. Every time you deny how you feel for her, a little bit of Alice dies. She just wants you to be happy. WE ALL want you to be happy. _The unnatural calm built up again, and I fought against it with all of my will.

"No. Jasper. No. I want to feel this," I couldn't really cry, but I could scream. Jasper waited until it was over, until I had howled to put a wolf to shame, so much so that all of the anguish was released from my body, so when it stopped I was empty inside. The calm I felt was my own. I let Jasper take me home.

The fourth time I saw Bella, I thought she was a vision sent to haunt me.

The years had been cruel on me. Still physically unravaged by time, I was watching from a distance as she grew older. I was cursed to watch her take comfort in the arms of men, to try and heal the wounds I had so callously created. I wished, not for the first time, that she had found solace in the arms of that _dog_ because at least then I would have some mandatory distance between us.

Carlisle had moved our coven temporarily to Ireland with Siobhan, but that was only for a few years. He eventually wanted to move back to the states. Seven Americans in Ireland was bound to cause undue attention on Siobhan and her family.

In between moving back to the states, to upstate Michigan where the snow as thick and the winters long, Jasper, Emmett, and I went on a hunting trip to South America. While Emmett preferred bears, all of us could stand to consume the strong animals that lived in the Amazon. They were a welcome break from the animals that lived in the north. There is a difference in taste, slight and subtle. The animals in the south, their blood is more exotic, and in the north they're more earthy. Like home. And I wanted to be as far from home as possible before possibly running to Bella again in the states.

I started following her scent before I even realized what it was. The rain was thick, masking everything with the scent of fresh rain. But I caught the smell anyway, the sweet fragrance that was her. She was beautiful.

Age hadn't affected her the way it did others her age. She was beautiful, simple and smoking a cigarette under the eave of the roof. She hadn't caught sight of me. I could back up, run back to Jasper and Emmett, make a run for the states, hope to never run into her again. But she was so _intoxicating._ I couldn't help myself.

She froze. She always froze, a deer before the kill. So fragile. So human. I wanted her more than anything I've ever wanted in my life.

"Bella," the word sounded broken on my tongue. I couldn't help it if it broke my heart.

"Edward," her voice was small. She was in a bright orange t-shirt, and it showed her slightly matured figure, the rounding of her hips, the size of her chest. Her lips were pouted out, her eyes caught. She couldn't look away. I stepped onto the deck.

"We keep running into each other," I sighed. I wanted to touch her, to know that she was real in this place, that I hadn't imagined her again. She was all I thought about. Her body thrummed at my closeness. I could hear everything. The way her heartbeat quickened, that her breath came faster. She was against the wall, but her body moved towards mine, her instincts drawing her closer to the ultimate predator.

"What are you doing here?" her voice verged on hard, but I could sense the need there, could feel the want there. She wanted me.

"Hunting," The reason wasn't important. I just wanted _her._ It was her I yearned for, her I needed. She was air. She was life. She was blood. I reached for her. If I could just convince her that I was sincere, that I needed her as much as she once needed me. My fingers slid across her cheek, warm and inviting. She slapped me away. The beast inside warred with me, the thirst all enveloping. I wanted her. I needed her. I would have her. I pulled myself back a little.

"You don't get to come back. You don't get to say what you want to say, and then expect me to just...cave, like I haven't been through enough. I'm a woman now Edward, not some silly girl to be strung along through your twisted little vampire romance," that hurt. Her going inside hurt. I wished now more than ever that I could hear her thoughts, that I could understand what she needed, what she wanted. But still, her thoughts were dark. Silence from inside the building.

I retreated into the forest, coming back to Emmett and Jasper, who had felled a great cat in the forest, who looked at me and at once knew what was wrong.

_It'll be okay, Edward._ Emmetts voice was a strength in my mind, Jasper willing me into a peaceful lull. I felt broken. But at least she was okay. Maybe she had moved on. I just wished I could as well.

The fifth time I saw Bella, I knew it was going to happen.

I had kept an eye on her. I didn't mean to. It wasn't an intentional thing. She was just so fragile there, hiding behind this strength I knew she didn't have. That man, the man she was with in Brazil, the man she started to live with, he was okay. I wasn't sure he was good enough for her, but I wasn't sure anyone was good enough for her.

I knew about her miscarriages, about how the first one broke her heart, how Alice told me it was going to happen and I had watched from the window after she came from the hospital, about how she had laid there in the bedroom, wrapped in her own grief. How she had only eaten after a week, when her cheeks had hollowed out and her eyes had sunken in her skull. She looked so close to death. I was there for the others, the grim spectre of death on the horizon.

Other than that, I stayed far away from her. I couldnt' bear it if she saw me, in the corner of her eye, if I brought her more grief. Then one day, that changed.

We had gotten the news. Charlie Swan had died. I didnt' want to go to the funeral. Alice said I should pay my respects, for Bella's sake. I knew she was right. Though she never really talked about it, Charlie was one of the few actual parental figures she had, Renee too much of a child to take care of her own. Charlie had been her strength, her family, and now he was dead, shot by some stupid kid.

Carlisle had taken it upon himself to accept the invitation offered by one of the sheriff's deputies who had heard about the Cullens in both a positive and negative light. Charlie had always liked Carlisle, and he would be remiss to miss the mans funeral.

It had taken a great deal of coercion on the part of Alice to get them back me back in Forks. The town was filled with memories. Watching Bella sleep. Running into James and his coven outside of town. The papercut at the house. Seeing her at school for the first time. Everything. It ran together sharply, the emotions, the tastes, the smells, they filled me as if they were happening all at once.

She was at the front, a strange man, about her age, young but not overly so. From the back of his head, I couldnt' recognize her, but when he turned around to talk to the person behind him, I recognized him as the man she was with now. I hoped he treated her right.

I knew Bella didn't want me here, I wished I hadn't come. How had I let Alice talk me into this. It was obviously the wrong decision. She doesn't want me here.

I saw her move out of the viewing room, her father cold in front of her, and I followed after her. I needed to speak to her. I barely made it out of the room, catching the tail end of a growl from the dogs in the front. I recognized Jacob at the front, apparent leadership of the pack, next to his father. He too was unravaged by time, a gift for his shifting abilities. It must be such a terrible reminder of her own mortality to know so many people who would never change, who would remain teenaged for the rest of their lives.

No one was in the hallway, a small and dark affair with deep wood panelling. I could feel her in the bathrooom, just feet from where I stood. I couldn't resist. She was the drug, I was the addict that couldn't stay away.

She was standing in front of the mirror, eyes red with tears, and when she saw me in the reflection, she gripped the sides of the sink with enough strength to turn her knuckles white. She turned around, wiping snot from her nose, beautiful even now.

"What are you doing here Edward," it was cold. Distant.

"Well Carlisle always considered Charlie a friend..." I lamely started out, knowing probably before she did that she would interupt me.

"I know that. But. What.Are_. You. _Doing. Here," She was angry, stiff with her own loss. I wanted to move to her, to comfort her, but I knew I wasn't wanted. "Today of all days." I didn't want another one of her run ins with me to be here. She deserved more than that. But fate, it would seem, had other plans.

"I'm sorry Bella, I truly am," she stiffened at the name, and I memorized her features. Slightly older. Wrinkles had started growing at the corners of her eyes and I could make out gray hairs in her normally flat brown hair. She moved a little slower, but she was still beautiful. She was still my Bella.

"I don't need this right now Edward. I'm going back to Dylan now," she started walking towards the door, pushing off from the counter she was on. I stopped her with my hand, the fist physical contact we had had in a couple of years. She stopped, looking at me with empty eyes. Outside, I sensed Jasper trying to calm the mood in the room, but it was having little to no effect, this had been a long time coming.

"Dylan?" I knew who it was, but I needed her confirmation, I needed to know from her own lips that she had moved on.

"Dylan Walsh. My husband. We've been married for eight years now," I saw red. Married. The one thing I had wanted from her, the one thing I could never have. Married to the man I had seen with her in Brazil and in Chicago. Her _husband._ She had married him. She wasn't good enough for her. He didn't deserve her. I didn't realize I had pushed a dent into the door until I saw her expression of both fear and rememberance. I pulled my hand back as if there was a shock. I registered Jaspers confusion, his questions. I ignored them.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting that." I heard Jasper from outside the door. _You shouldn't have said that. She's angry now._

"Grow up Edward. I'm going to be a mother soon. I have everything a girl like me needs. Leave me alone," she moved out of the bathroom, past Jasper into the funeral parlor. She was beautiful when she was angry, the flush rising to her cheeks. God, how could I want her this much. I slid against the cool tile of the bathroom, cool to my own chill skin. I just wanted all of this to be over. I loved her so much, and I had to watch as she lived her life, as she slept with another man, as she had children. There was so much I couldn't give her, that he could. I supposed it was I that would have to move on.

The sixth time I saw Bella, she was dying.

Alice had a habit, as of late, of disappearing for random stretches of time. When I would question her about the disappearances, when I would try and read her mind, I would be met with a great assortment of blocks, from her intimate encounters with Jasper, to the Complete Works of Shakespeare in Italian and every vision she had had since she had woken. She was deliberately keeping me out, concentrating on all of the things she knew I wanted to get at.

She would disappear, Jasper her perpetual shadow, for days at a time. And then she was gone for a month.

The family was in rural Wisconsin, playing older for the first time in a long time on a patch of farm land. They were joined by two vampires, a couple named Drusilla and William, who could live off animal blood and were, though they were more commonly known for drinking from humans. They were good company, even though Drusilla was odd and slightly mad, like Alice, just crazier, and William seemed to have a blood lust that verged on homicidal. But they had been alive for quite a while and had stories spanning decades. I listened to them to cut back on my fear that Alice was hiding something important from me. She had done that before.

I had kept tabs on Bella, the loose kind you could keep up over the internet. She had adopted a daughter, a beautiful little girl she had named Alice Esme. Her mother had died. My family had sent flowers. Her husband died, I sent flowers. Even if she was too good for him, she loved him, and in my heart I wanted to thank him for taking care of her, for giving him everything I couldn't. Love. Happiness. A family. Comfort. Everything I was too much of a coward to offer.

But I knew something was wrong when Alice was gone for longer than a weekend, for longer than a short jaunt hunting with her significant other. She was gone for weeks on end, and then I realized she was calling for me.

I already knew what she was going to say when I got the call.

"Bella's dying, Edward. There's nothing I can do," she was quiet, broken, a little guardian angel unable to save her charge.

"Should I come Alice? Will she see me?" I wanted her answer to be yes. I wanted to be there for the woman I could only love from a far.

"She doesn't know it yet, but she wants to see you Edward. You're very important to her," Alice was quiet, assured. I wish I felt that way. Bella. My Bellla was dying.

In all of my life I had never been confronted with my own mortality. Not until Bella. But then a little brunette, out of her element, had made me realize how brief life is, how its supposed to be lived. How I wasn't living it. When you have forever to live you don't stop to admire the brick work or to see the sunrise. You live each day with the knowledge that it will be basically the same as the last. The subtleties of life are lost on you. Until I decided to number my days with her, I had never thought of that. I wanted to bask in my own pain, to live in the anguish that I had forced upon myself, but I was forced to admire the world we were both to leave so soon. It was beautiful. I would miss it.

I went to Chicago, caught a red eye and tried not to breath on the flight. I hated flying. There was too many people in one place, all smelling wonderfully. But it didn't matter. Not this time. This time I was flying to Bella, the women I always loved, who may die thinking I didn't love her if I didn't get there in time. I may not be sure about the existence of God, but I believed in Alice, and I didn't believe she would call me too late to see Bella living.

She lived in a decent enough house. A brownstone, humble and unassuming. How could someone so wonderful live in a place so plain?

I stepped inside. The rest of my family was already there. Alice had called them first? Why? Was I only to have the barest of minutes, the final minute moments before she died? Was I to only have her last breath?

_Alice thought it was best,_ Carlisle thought, his kind topaz eyes turning on his son, _Bella wasn't ready until now. She's still angry inside. _

Oh god Bella. I didn't know she was so bad. She was so thin, her bones sticking through her skin, her flesh pallid. I wished I could do something for her. If only I could give her half of my undead life, if only I could die for her. She was too good to die.

_Jasper's keeping the pain down. He says its getting harder as the day progresses. Alice isn't sure how much longer she's going to last_, Carlisle smiled and talked to the young woman next to him in the living wake, a beautiful girl, maybe 20, holding a beautiful baby. Alice Esme. He recognized her from the few times he had driven to Chicago and sat outside of Bella's house, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman he couldn't have. She was beautiful, like her mother.

He moved to her side, holding her frail arm, worried now more than ever that he could break her. She seemed so small. My heart was breaking, but I tried not to show her. I tried to keep my face devoid of emotion, to keep unemotional. Jaspers calming influence seeped through at the edges, creeping like water into my mind. I accepted his help, his offer.

"Edward," I almost lost it there. Almost broke down. Her voice was so small. It cracked and caught in her throat, broken by age and disease. Why hadn't I turned her so many years ago? Then she would be mine? Why hadn't I saved her the illness of old age? Why couldn't I be strong enough for her? I cracked.

"I lied," I needed her to know. She had to know I wasn't serious, that I didn't mean to hurt her all those years ago. That I had lied.

"What?" confusion broke across her face. She didn't understand.

"I lied. I always loved you. You were more than a distraction. I should've never....I was doing it for you. I did it all for you. Everything. I just wanted you to be....happy," it was all I had ever wanted. I wanted her to be safe, to live. Everything. I wished everything for her.

"Why are you telling me this now?"she didn't understand. She was dying, if she didnt' know now, she may never know.

"Because, I needed you to know, because I've screwed this up so much, because, because even now, watchng you leave me forever, I'm still more in love with you than I can put into words. If I could tear out my own still beating heart and give it to you so that you may live, I would," it was true. I had considered it, but it was silly. She couldn't live forever in this body. She'd hate me for that. Her eyes, glassy and old focused on me, and she smiled.

"I don't want it, Edward. I don't want it anymore," she tossed her head "I lived my life Edward. I did all the things I wanted to do. I had children. I loved Dylan. I loved my daughter. And for a short period of time, when we were both young, I loved you. I wouldn't take any of that away. For her," she pointed a wobbly finger at Alice Esme, who lurched forward unsure of herself to take her mothers other hand, "I would've lost you a hundred times. You leaving almost killed me, Edward, but afterwards, I lived."

"Bella..." I needed her so bad. I could feel her slipping away, could feel the life draining from her body more suredly than if I had taken the blood from her myself. In my mind, she was young again, lying on the floor of the ballet studio, broken and bleeding on the floor, the venom from James slowly working its way through her body. She had been writhing, in pain, dying, becoming like me. I could've let her, I could've allowed her to become like me. We could've stayed together. But I had to save her? But what kind of man was I if I couldn't save her from death?

"Edward," her voice was low, even to my vampiric hearing, and my family tried to hear the final words the broke me, "I forgive you."

I could never forgive myself.

I cleaned out my bank accouts within a day, left a trust for when Bella's daughter went to college, for when she started a life. Once upon a time, I had loved a young girl named Bella Swan. I hadn't been able to take care of her the way I should've, hadn't been able to give her what she needed because I was a monster and a coward. I wasn't going to allow the same thing to happen to her family. They would be cared for. And I, I would take what the Volturi gave to me. I would offer myself to them, to kill me and end my pain.

Someday, maybe, I would see Bella again. And then I would know her love.

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(seriously, I think this is the last bit of this.)


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